Publish date: 5 April 2024
The work of the Cancer Alliance’s Health Inequalities and Patient Experience team – and its lead Jo Trask – has been given a national spotlight in an influential journal.
Jo, Cheshire and Merseyside Cancer Alliance’s Patient Experience and Health Inequalities Programme Manager, has spoken about CMCA’s work in reducing barriers to cancer care as part of a wide-ranging feature on the issue in the British Medical Journal (The BMJ).
The highly-regarded medical journal, owned by the British Medical Association, published the feature around how the findings of the Marmot review in 2010 – Fair Society, Healthy Places – are being put into practice across the country.
‘Marmot Places: the areas taking a proactive approach to health inequalities’ focusses on organisations and areas striving to give fairer access to healthcare, as called for by public health professor, Sir Michael Marmot.
After interviewing Sir Michael, the article looks at how Cheshire and Merseyside became a ‘Marmot Place’ and hears how Jo and her team have been training healthcare professionals in the sub-region to help reduce inequality.
Jo details how health and care staff are being made aware of the issue, with the article stating: 'Doctors are “genuinely astonished” by the real-life examples her team present about why patients couldn’t make an appointment — such as patients living in their car or worrying that they could lose their job if they take time off to attend. “What the doctors often don’t realise is that these are not one or two extreme examples. That’s how people are living.”’
You can read the article here with a subscription: https://www.bmj.com/content/384/bmj.q654.full
Jo has also recently taken part in a podcast talking about improving access to healthcare.
She is interviewed on the LivIPL podcast, from the University of Liverpool and aimed at healthcare professionals in the city region.
Listen to it here: https://shows.acast.com/the-livipl-podcast/episodes/jo-trask-health-inequalities-and-patient-engagement-programm